After almost 20 years of service to Xbox owners everywhere, the Xbox Live service has renamed itself to the Xbox network, according to a recent update to the Microsoft Services Agreement. If you’re a beta tester for Microsoft’s Xbox family of systems, you may have started to notice a few changes in branding lately. 

“The update from Xbox Live to Xbox network is intended to distinguish the underlying service from Xbox Live Gold memberships,” a Microsoft spokesman said to The Verge. 

What this rebranding is intended to do is to separate those users who have an Xbox Gold Subscription, with those who do not and just have an online connection. What this sets Xbox up for is their future plans to drop the need for an Xbox Gold membership to play free-to-play online games like Fortnite, World of Tanks, and others. These plans will be put into place in the coming months, but Microsoft has not confirmed an exact date. 

Nothing else changes with users’ service, nor are there any added benefits to the name change. 

Tell us what you think! Are you looking forward to this change, or are you upset that Microsoft didn’t capitalize “network” in their rebranding? Let us know in the comments! 

Source: The Verge